Martin Sharp Of Sharp Fit For Life On How to Go Beyond Your Comfort Zone To Grow Both Personally and Professionally
An Interview With Maria Angelova
Just Starting: If you start a new fitness regime without any planning or direction, then you won’t know what to expect in terms of the changes that will come, including building muscle, lowering stress, or reducing body fat. This leads people to make snap decisions, without knowledge of what works for them or what the results might be. As a result, they inevitably lose heart and give up, and in doing so reinforce the myelin pathways in their brains telling them that it’s okay to quit!
It feels most comfortable to stick with what we are familiar with. But anyone who has achieved great success will tell you that true growth comes from pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. What are some ways that influential people have pushed themselves out of their comfort zone to grow both personally and professionally? As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Martin Sharp.
Martin Sharp is a multi-award-winning international consultant, coach, speaker, and author. At age 43, his working lifestyle led him to weigh 154kg (340lb) with a 54” (137cm) waist to match but, within two years, he had managed to completely transform his body. With 30 years of experience in the world of business transformation, Martin understands the unique challenges faced by busy, overweight professionals, and now specialises in transforming them into fitter, happier, and more confident versions of themselves.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we start, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory?
My childhood was probably quite typical of the time. But, although my parents were divorced, my mother married a wonderful man. I was very lucky to have two great fathers in my life, an amazing mum, and a fantastic grandma. Each of them gave me wonderful learning experiences across a wide variety of areas, which I’ve hoped to replicate with my own children.
Don’t get me wrong — it wasn’t easy. As an extended working class family, money was always tight, and I saw my parents work hard to try and keep their heads above water and not always succeed. Time was a premium, and there was always sibling rivalry to contend with.
I remember that my mum always wanted to take my brother and me to Orlando, Florida when we were younger, but it wasn’t something she was ever able to do. So, 10 years ago, as a thank you for all she had done for us, I took her for a three-week holiday there, along with my two young children. I’d reached a point where my business was doing okay, and it was amazing to give her that experience to enjoy with her grandchildren!
However, the trip wasn’t all smooth sailing. In fact, it ended up having a profound impact on my life in ways I wasn’t expecting. More on this in a moment…
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“You have to find the mental strength to change, and make this one of your highest values for your transformation to succeed.”
When someone first said this to me, it really made me stop and reflect on what was truly important in life. My role at the time was to help organisations identify their key values and purpose for being. I, in turn, found I had to use similar skills to examine the top three things that are important in my life. From there, it was important for me to understand what could happen if I didn’t change, what impact that could have on my highest values, and how much more I could do if I did change.
However, I’d already been on a significant (and not particularly successful) journey when I first heard the quote. And this brings me back to Florida, which is where I first realised that I had to start doing things differently.
It was December 2014 and a baking hot day. As I reached the front of the line for the Incredible Hulk ride with my two young children, a young park attendant said to me: “Excuse me sir, you’ll have to wait for the next car. It has a special seat for people like you.”
I stood embarrassed at the side, wondering what he meant, and feeling the other people in the queue judging me. As I’m sure you can imagine, it was a relief when the car finally arrived. But, when I got in alongside my children and pulled down the restraining bar, I couldn’t get it to engage! That’s when I heard the attendant’s voice again: “Excuse me sir, but you are too big to go on this ride.”
Thankfully, my friend was able to sit with my children so they could enjoy the rollercoaster, but it was a sobering experience. And that wasn’t the end of it! There were several more rides across the theme parks that I couldn’t take my children on.
One evening, as we were looking over photos from the trip, one we’d taken on the monorail caught my eye — I had moobs! And they were bigger than my wife’s boobs! Something had to change. I just had to find the mental strength to make it happen.
The thing is, my business and lifestyle had me travelling a lot, so I wasn’t always able to go to my hometown gym, and I found myself cancelling sessions with Kez, my dynamo of a PT. And, although I was good at tracking what I was eating when I was at home, it would go out the window when I was away on business. My role was to build rapport, get things done, and socialise with my clients. This nearly always involved eating three-course meals and lots of drinking, none of which got logged.
On reflection, it’s not surprising that my progress was so poor. I only dropped 10kg of my 154kg weight in over five years! And, truth be told, by May 2019 I had practically given up.
Perhaps this was me. I was happy, and I had a good business, great friends, and a loving family. Maybe I should just enjoy that while I still could, and wait for the ailments that affect my father, uncle, and brother — like cancer, diabetes, and fibromyalgia — to overtake me.
It was around this time that I met Adam at a hotel in Felbridge, while I was coaching for Andy Harrington’s Professional Speakers Academy. Adam was the world-leading online physique coach, a bodybuilder, and Herculean in stature, although he spoke like a stoic philosopher.
What he told me during that conversation changed my life — can you guess what he said? That’s right; he’s the one who told me that “you have to find the mental strength to change, and make this one of your highest values for your transformation to succeed”.
I wasn’t really sure what he meant at first. Was he really saying that I had to start putting myself first to be able to make a change? It dawned on me that he was right. I had to be selfish to be selfless — I couldn’t keep trying to work on myself alongside everything else! I had to work on myself for everything else. For my family, that I love dearly; for my friends, who I enjoy spending time with; and for my clients, who need their results.
Once my mindset had shifted, I realised that all I really needed now was a plan. I knew how to run transformational change in business; I just had to apply those principles to myself! So, I signed up for professional custom personal training and a nutrition plan with Adam, and I asked him to coach me.
This was a real turning point for me. It was the moment that I finally found the strength to make a positive, lasting change. To do that, though, I had to get myself out of my comfort zone.
Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?
I love the film The Martian — what a great story of humanity reaching out beyond its capabilities! And yet it shows us that, for all the technological advancement, when abandoned and alone, it is only our own thoughts, emotions, and skills that we can really rely on. It makes you think: how can you fine tune yours to ensure they serve you in all situations?
Stories of all kinds can teach us valuable lessons. But, to get anything out of them, we have to be curious. Curiosity is a very powerful skill that, while potentially fatal to cats, is not fatal to us. In fact, it is essential to human development and innovation. It’s how we move beyond simply accepting things as they are, and start working out how new combinations can provide stunning and often unexpected results.
I try to live my life by this approach, which is summed up nicely by a quote from Vitruvius, a Roman architect and engineer from circa 25 BC. He says: “The ideal architect should be a man [or woman] of letters, a skillful draftsman, a mathematician, familiar with historical studies, a diligent student of philosophy, acquainted with music, not ignorant of medicine, learned in the responses of jurisconsults, familiar with astronomy and astronomical calculations.”
To me, this quote describes someone who is ever curious and, as a result, knowledgeable across a number of different disciplines. That’s the sort of person who I believe is best placed to bring together solutions to real problems for the betterment of people.
Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. Let’s start with a basic definition so that all of us are on the same page. What does “getting outside of your comfort zone” mean?
For me, a person’s comfort zone is the place where they can find themselves with the most certainty. Life is easy inside that comfort zone; it is safe, ordered and predictable, and offers the sort of stability that assures you that things will carry on as they are. However, it comes with self-imposed limitations which, for many, eventually become stifling.
In the end, a person’s comfort zone is a breeding ground for boredom, which eventually leads them to wish that things could change, without knowing how to make that happen. And that’s something I know from experience.
For five years I’d tried to make a change, with very limited success. So, I had to try a different approach.
It wasn’t easy. I first had to work out how to fit my fitness plan into an already-rammed schedule, then learn how to adapt it to work wherever I was. Whether I was in a luxurious, well-equipped gym in Dubai, a basement gym in Romania, or the busy PureGym in my hometown in the UK, I had to ensure I was sticking to my programme and not making excuses.
It was amazing how quickly my body started to transform once I prioritised my goals. In the first 12 weeks, despite being away from home for eight of them, I dropped over 10kg! In other words, I’d doubled my progress of the last five years. From there, I continued to learn, adapt, and to manage my nutrition and exercise while away, whether I had access to a gym or not. It wasn’t long before my suits no longer fit and I had to start replacing my wardrobe on a regular basis.
Even when the Covid-19 pandemic locked the world down, I didn’t allow myself to fall back into old habits. Instead, I quickly set to work building a makeshift gym at home using an old frame tent, and acquired equipment from eBay, friends, and Facebook.
By the time the first lockdown restrictions had been lifted in the UK, people I’d known for years were passing me on the street without recognising me! Within that first year, despite the travel, client engagements, and the impact of the pandemic, I had reduced my overall body weight by 40kg, and my body fat by 20%.
But the most dramatic effects are the ones that you cannot see externally. You see, I’m no longer just existing in life for others — I’m living it for myself. As a result, I’m capable of cycling for miles if I choose. I can perform handstands whenever I want, although I’m not sure how useful that is in a meeting. I feel renewed and confident, like a more youthful version of myself, and it makes a big difference in everything I do. However, to make that difference, I first had to find the courage to step outside of my comfort zone and stay there.
Can you help articulate a few reasons why it is important to get out of your comfort zone?
Change is inevitable. But people who live inside their comfort zones don’t want to acknowledge that fact. The thing is though, the world is never going to stop for them. Change is going to happen anyway, and often with unexpected or undesired consequences.
In business, it is well known that if you don’t grow or innovate, then your market starts to shrink and your offer starts to be seen as a commodity, eventually becoming irrelevant. As a result, the business will eventually need to close.
It’s similar for people. That’s why it’s so important to get out of your comfort zone — so you don’t stagnate. In doing so, you will experience growth, take on new challenges, and achieve more fulfilment through creation rather than consumption.
Is it possible to grow without leaving your comfort zone? Can you explain what you mean?
Allow me to start this answer by telling you about a chat I had with an ultramarathon runner nearly 20 years ago.
We were talking about the whole idea of comfort, learning, growth, and panic zones, and he gave me this lovely analogy of thinking of your comfort zone a bit like a hula hoop. This is where the vast majority of people live their lives — inside the hoop. As they move through life, all they do is push the hoop forwards so that it’s touching their back, and then they shuffle forwards a bit more before they push it forwards again. And that’s what they spend their entire life doing, not getting very far, because they’re not pushing themselves any further than the hoop.
I remember that he advocated grabbing a hold of this hula hoop and just throwing it as far as possible, and then running to catch up. This is how he pushed himself in all sorts of ways.
As an ex-footballer who went on to do marathons, he found the races too sedate. So, to push himself, he did three marathons a month. And when that became too easy, he started doing triathlons, Ironmans, and ultra-triathlons. Then they became too easy, so he invented his own challenges, such as swimming the Straits of Gibraltar, then cycling from Gibraltar up to Monaco, and running from Monaco to Cannes.
So, do I believe that you can grow inside your comfort zone? Yes, though it will be limited — a bit like opening a savings account that offers only 1% interest.
To experience real growth — tangible growth that you can see, appreciate, and accumulate — you have to break out of your comfort zone and really invest in you. From my perspective, there is little risk in doing so, and a whole lot of rewards!
Can you share some anecdotes from your personal experience? Can you share a story about a time when you stepped out of your comfort zone and how it helped you grow? How does it feel to take those first difficult steps?
There are plenty of anecdotes I could tell you, but perhaps the most powerful is one that comes from a very recent experience.
I was laying in bed on the evening of New Year’s Day when my amazing wife Sarah turned to me and said: “The York 10K is coming up this year; perhaps I should run this one?”
It’s something she’s been wanting to do for nearly 10 years, so of course I urged her to sign up. After all, this year’s was due to be held on her birthday — a sure sign that the universe was telling her to go and apply.
“Oh, I’m not sure,” she responds.
“Tell you what, what if I run this with you? We’ll do it for your birthday and enjoy the experience together.”
So it was decided, and from there we both raced to see who could sign up the quickest.
The thing is, I am not a runner and never have been. When I was overweight, running simply wasn’t an option. And, before that, as an asthmatic who had in the past been hospitalised, it was a very daunting prospect. But staying in my comfort zone was not an option, because supporting my wife will always be far more important. It speaks to my highest value of being there for my family.
It wasn’t easy. I remember I came back from a snow sculpting competition in Nayoro, Japan in February and went straight into training. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t even run more than 1K, and even that was very slow — barely more than a walk! Every step felt like I was going to die. Then, to top it off, it would take me hours to recover.
However, I knew how to capitalise on my initial momentum and build repetition, consistency, and perseverance. That’s just what I did when I was transforming my body. It’s also how I’ve been able to transform businesses since 1993, working with companies on major changes ranging from $16bn digital asset transfers and £15bn airport purchases, to £1bn-£2bn growth structures and many multi-million-dollar improvement programmes.
To help me along the way, I reached out for expert advice on things like breathing techniques and training methods. In this way, I was able to improve my running little by little — literally step by step — and that’s how things started to change.
Sarah and I took part in our first Parkrun on the recommendation of our accountant, and we thoroughly enjoyed it, both of us making it to running 5K nonstop! As I continued training, I saw my VO2 max (the maximum amount of oxygen my body can absorb and use during aerobic exercise) grow from 34.8 (low) to 47 (high).
Then came the day of the York 10K…
I completed it in under an hour (56 minutes) and raised money for the RNLI! I didn’t think that was too bad for someone who was a non-runner at the start of the year.
During this time and inspired by friends, I applied for the 2025 TCS London Marathon. Despite not getting selected in the ballot, I wasn’t deterred.
A friend of mine, Gabe, who is an ultramarathon runner, suggested joining him for the Milton Keynes marathon on 5th May 2025, and that one I was accepted to. Then Run for All, the race organisers of the York 10K, invited me to the Rob Burrows Leeds marathon, set to be held less than a week later on 11th May 2025. It was only a week after that that the Teenage Cancer Trust reached out to ask if I would run on their behalf in the London Marathon at the end of April 2025, which I am incredibly proud to do. It’s funny how these things work out.
Like many families, ours has been affected by cancer. I lost my uncle, my father’s twin brother, to pancreatic cancer. My father himself survived thyroid cancer and bouts of skin cancer. The hardest, though, was when my cousin’s daughter was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma at age 14. Even though there was an initial reprieve, it soon came back. Despite best efforts, expert treatment, and incredible support from the Teenage Cancer Trust unit at the Leeds General Infirmary, she lost her brave battle five years later.
I have never run a marathon before, and I have no idea if I can complete one — let alone three within just 14 days, only 14 months after starting to run!
But I have thrown my metaphorical hula hoop even further out in front of me for everyone to see and now continue to run, trying to catch up with it.
What are your “five ways to push past your comfort zone, to grow both personally and professionally”?
• Know Your Personal Values:
If there’s one key thing that I want people to take from my story, it’s that, in times of stress, your values are what will keep you on track.
You see, regardless of whether your goal is personal or professional, your own intrinsic motivation will come from the same source. That’s why knowing what you value the most is crucial; so that your mind can become your best supporter.
Not sure where to begin? Start by asking yourself the following questions: What gives your life meaning? What gets you out of bed in the morning? What makes you do what you do? What keeps you going when you feel like giving up.
• Prepare:
The old project management mantra of ‘failing to plan is planning to fail’ really is true. Even when a plan is not perfect, the planning process is crucial. When you initiate a plan and know what action to apply when you see results, success will come.
The thing is, while some of the best businesses do this and benefit from it, many in their teams forget that they can apply this same approach to themselves. This can manifest in all sorts of different ways, but there are three main mistakes that people tend to make when planning for personal goals. If we’re talking specifically about my area of expertise — AKA improving fitness and lifestyle — then this is what they look like:
• Just Starting: If you start a new fitness regime without any planning or direction, then you won’t know what to expect in terms of the changes that will come, including building muscle, lowering stress, or reducing body fat. This leads people to make snap decisions, without knowledge of what works for them or what the results might be. As a result, they inevitably lose heart and give up, and in doing so reinforce the myelin pathways in their brains telling them that it’s okay to quit!
• Setting Unrealistic Expectations: Many have unrealistic expectations for themselves that are based on someone else’s circumstances. For example, when they see somebody else’s transformation and decide that they should do the exact same thing. Chances are, though, that they’re starting at a completely different point to that person, based on what their life is like, their level of commitment, and the resources they have available. But, because they’ve already made the comparison to someone else, they expect their own outcomes to be exactly the same. When that doesn’t happen, they give up, often with the excuse that the process doesn’t work or it’s just not for them.
• Setting Unrealistic Timeframes: It’s very, very common for people to set goals on a whim. People will, for example, decide to do something like lose 40 pounds of body fat in four weeks, meaning they start too aggressively, eat next to nothing, and suddenly start doing loads of exercise. This usually results in them dropping their calories super, super low and expending loads of energy on the other side of the equation. What usually happens is that they see some progress pretty quickly — even if they feel awful as a result of their efforts. And that’s when they start to feel resentful towards the process and decide that it’s just too hard. That’s why realistic timeframes are so important; it’s not just about achieving fat loss in the short term, but being able to sustain that progress by altering their lifestyle.
With the right plan, knowledge, and support, people can mentally prepare themselves for the process ahead of them — and this applies not just to fat loss, but to all different forms of pushing out of your comfort zone!
They can also set realistic goals and outcomes, including long-term goals that can be broken down into a series of short-term, sustainable targets. This will give them something to measure against. Those who don’t won’t give themselves enough room to adapt, making change much harder to achieve.
• Build Your Support Group:
It’s often said that you are the sum of the people that you spend the most time with. While many of the people in your life might be well-meaning, ask yourself: Are they holding me back? Do they advise me to play it safe or avoid risk? Do they hold their own pity parties instead of taking accountability?
You see, the people around you might influence you more than you realise. So, ensure that they believe in your dreams, encourage you, and provide you with an uplifting, empowering environment. If they do, and you have faith in yourself too, then they will be essential to your success.
They could be a partner, a friend, a family member, a coach, whoever! Just be sure to choose wisely, because some people like to hold others back. Let me give you an example.
A client of mine was struggling with a young baby and an abusive partner. Although she did eventually leave the partner, she still allowed him to dictate her life. And the thing was that her friendship group supported this! They believed that the two of them would get back together, or that she was exaggerating when she reached out for help.
Instead of offering her the help she needed, they encouraged binge drinking and poor diet and lifestyle choices. But this only made her feel more isolated, and she saw a deterioration in her physical and mental wellbeing.
It wasn’t until she broke out of her comfort zone, moved away, and detached herself from her friendship group that things started to change. Admittedly, with no local support at first, it did initially feel like she’d done the wrong thing. Her life was a lot harder in some ways. The key thing was, though, that she could finally focus her energy on what she and the baby really needed.
And then, after a short while, she was able to start making new friends and rebuild her life. Once the basics were in order, she turned her attention to self-care. That’s when she started setting goals for herself: to lose some of her remaining postpartum body weight, to make time for doing team sports that she loved, and so on. But all of this only became possible because of the support of the community around her — something that was unavailable to her a year earlier.
• Look at What Is Stopping You:
It’s important to be aware of what could trip you up or has caused you problems in the past, so that you can be prepared for the future. This is a highly valuable skill in business risk management, but it’s one that individuals can adopt for themselves too.
For example, you might be trying to lose weight, but know that tomorrow is usually bacon sandwich day in the office. In that case, don’t just tell yourself you won’t have one — plan to have something that will replace it, to remove temptation and lessen the impact. Could you treat yourself to a skinny latte instead?
I worked closely with a client called Mark on this issue. Mark works with teams in businesses on their leadership and development skills. Often, he’d find that he’d have to work late or be sent to another location on short notice. This would give him little time to prepare, leaving him to grab whatever food he could — usually a sandwich and a pastry from the local cafe. Along with his more sedentary lifestyle, this led Mark to develop a bit of a belly and lose his love for sports like football and running, which he used to enjoy.
Working with Mark to develop a fitness plan for his lifestyle also meant addressing some of the habits that were holding him back — such as these frequent cafe visits. However, rather than simply stopping him from going to cafes altogether, I helped him to understand what foods would be better choices for him. This gave him knowledge that has allowed him to fuel himself when caught unprepared, while still maintaining progress towards his health goals.
As a result of our work together, Mark was able to drop 10kg, run marathons again, join the dad’s football group at his son’s club, and even take part in a muscle photoshoot!
All of this to say that, when trying to overcome a habit that isn’t serving you, you need to associate it with pain. Then, replace it with something that you enjoy and will serve you. By being prepared in advance, you’ll be more likely to stay on track.
• Remove the Metaphorical Bubble Wrap:
Your mind is an amazing tool. Any question you give it, it will try and respond based on your knowledge and previous experience. But, while useful, this can also have ramifications when it comes to trying new things.
The thing about moving out of your comfort zone is that you may not have any previous experience of doing so, and so your mind is going to try and keep you safe. It’s like having a health and safety department in your head. Without good questions and a clear vision of what the future could be, it’ll keep you wrapped up in metaphorical bubble wrap, unable to move forwards or take risks.
When trying to break out of your comfort zone for the first time, a good place to start is to write down the consequences associated with staying in your comfort zone, the feelings it gives you, and then where you could be if you were able to push into your growth zone. This is an exercise I tried with another client of mine called Thomas.
Thomas is a security consultant who wanted to make changes. Ultimately, he wanted to become fitter and healthier so he could support his family and be there for them as they grew older. The thing is, with a finely tuned risk instinct, he saw problems everywhere, and he had trained himself to always stay on the safest path.
By getting Thomas to answer a few questions about what the future could hold — what if he didn’t reach his goal, how would that make him feel, and so on — he was able to create a clear vision that he could lean on when things got hard. In other words, I got him to delve into real, vivid details and explore what his end goal could look, sound and feel like. The vision he conjured up as a result was enough to dwarf his obstacles and make them insignificant.
Unsurprisingly, Thomas went on to smash his personal goals and now enjoys going to the gym, preparing healthy meals with his partner, and going boxing with his daughters.
From your experience or perspective, what are some of the common barriers that keep someone from pushing out of their comfort zone?
I’ve found that the main barrier people face — whether they’re entrepreneurs, executives, or leading on multi-billion dollar transformations in their organisations — is fear. And fear comes in two forms. The first is obvious: “What if I fail?” This fear can trigger the fear of loss, judgement, rejection, being wrong, and potentially any conflict that comes in the aftermath.
The second is less obvious, and is actually rooted in our fear of success! This is a fear that comes from the unknown, of anxiety around change, of guilt, imposter syndrome, and feelings of unworthiness. If not acknowledged, this is a fear that can easily hold any entrepreneur back from really shining and showing their full potential.
You see, some people are comfortable with the problems they have learned to live with. Often, they’ve even created workarounds for the issues that stem from those problems, like their lack of success or mediocre results. In those cases, it becomes their own light that scares them more. To step into their own light means leaving those workarounds and coping mechanisms behind, and that’s enough to paralyse some people.
Thankfully, the solution to both of these problems, though not easy to achieve, is actually quite simple. It comes down to confronting their fear honestly, humbly, and with reverence. Because the thing is, our fear is man-made. It is not something we are born with; it is a story we tell ourselves about a situation that hasn’t even happened yet.
Fear works by fixating on a potential future pain that your primaeval mind then tries to avoid — a basic instinct. But this pain then acts as both a councillor and jailer of your actions, and binds you to the consequences of inaction, reaction, protraction, or the wrong actions.
Just as you would take a consultative approach to a problem in business, to get out of the fear/pain bind, you’ll need to ask yourself powerful, honest questions about your fear. What, for example, have been the consequences to taking action based on fear? And what could the outcome have been if you had chosen to take the right action?
Then, you can explore the fears more completely. To do this, finish the following sentences:
• The fear of failure has stopped me from…
• The fear of the unknown has caused me to…
• I have feared being abandoned by…
• I have feared committing to…
• I have feared being judged by…
• I have feared being wrong about…
• I have feared losing…
• I have feared conflict with…
• The fear of being enough has stopped me from…
• The fear of success has caused me to…
Once you have clearly identified your fears, pains, and problems, then you can take control by putting plans in place. In doing so, you will start to see what choices you really have, bringing clarity, confidence, and certainty. These are the tools you’ll need to take a leap not just with hope, but with action, too.
There is a well-known quote attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt that says, “Do something that scares you every day”. What exactly does this mean to you? Is there inherent value in doing something that pushes you out of your comfort zone, even if it does not relate to personal or professional growth? For example, if one is uncomfortable about walking alone at night, should one purposely push oneself to do it often for the sake of going beyond one’s comfort zone? Can you please explain what you mean?
Anything that pushes you out of your comfort zone will bring with it a sense of fear, no matter the size or scale of it. However, when people use that quote, they usually use it to describe jumping out of a plane or a bungee jump. While these things can be scary, it doesn’t always have to be some adrenaline-filled activity which causes the fear. It could be apologising to your brother because you argued. It could be saying “I love you” to someone you’re dating.
Now, there is a difference between doing something that scares you every day and doing something that is foolish. It would certainly be scary to cut your own arm off, but that isn’t something I believe anyone would do just to conquer their fears. Likewise, advising a young woman to walk alone through an unlit park at midnight is probably not the wisest idea.
To seize the moment and ask for a promotion at work; to take time out to care for yourself first, so that you can care for others after; to set up your own business; to have a conversation about something that has been worrying you. These are the real fears that can and should be tackled every day.
Should you push yourself out of your comfort zone? The short answer is yes. The reason being is that all people tend to exist in one of two states. When they are in their comfort zone, they feel confidence, certainty, safety, order, stability. But this comes with limitations. Eventually, boredom tends to set in and life starts to feel mundane and joyless. That’s when they begin to crave the opposite, where they seek choice, variety, change, flexibility, freedom. However, this comes at a cost, and has the potential to bring uncertainty, a lack of stability, and an increase in anxiety and stress.
Something to keep in mind here is that there are states of anxiety and stress that can help to keep you sharp rather than overwhelmed, and that can provide amazing results in performance, health, and personal life. A great example is your muscles, which need resistance to grow.
Plus, in the process of trying new things, you expand your comfort zone. This is how you can start to create a new normal for yourself. Remember that pushing yourself just past your comfort zone can help you master new skills, become comfortable in new environments, and give you a strong sense of accomplishment. So, learn to love the process.
Just be mindful that you don’t push yourself too hard too soon. While stepping out of your comfort zone can bring big benefits, there is a zone beyond your learning and growth zones that is known as the panic zone. This is where your levels of anxiety and stress go through the roof, which can affect performance and leave you feeling overwhelmed. To avoid a negative impact on your health and personal life, be careful not to push yourself into the panic zone.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?
Weight and obesity is a growing problem worldwide. In fact, I believe it to be the greatest pandemic to hit humanity, and it is not being talked about in the mainstream!
Being overweight or obese is linked to so many physical and mental problems, along with being a cause of (or at least a significant contributing factor to) many non-communicable diseases, such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and so on.
In 2010, the World Health Organisation (WHO) found that one billion people across the globe were overweight or obese. This figure had grown to 1.9 billion by 2019 — almost a quarter of the planet’s population! Then, as a result of the Covid-19 restrictions introduced in 2020, the average person’s body mass increased by around 15lb according to some reports.
It’s a particularly big problem in Europe, with 59% of all adults being classed as overweight or obese. And the thing is that the fastest-growing demographic (no pun intended) of overweight individuals is those on middle incomes. Professionals such as doctors, engineers, business owners, consultants, and so on, are struggling to adopt and maintain healthy lifestyles! It makes sense: they’re more likely to be busy, stressed, and overworked, with limited or no physical outlet, potentially grabbing whatever food they can and sacrificing their own health in the process.
So, I would like to see a movement that focuses on finding more practical ways to help hard-working, time-poor, busy professionals. That’s why I choose to share what I have learned through my own personal and professional experiences; to hopefully help get that movement started.
Is there a person in the world whom you would love to have lunch with, and why? Maybe we can tag them and see what happens!
I’d love to have lunch with Arnold Schwarzenegger! It would be a privilege to hear more about the change he has created for exercise adoption across the US in schools and with everyday people.
How can our readers follow you online?
Go to martinsharp.com! From there, you can find out more about what I do and follow me on socials.
Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!
Martin Sharp Of Sharp Fit For Life On How to Go Beyond Your Comfort Zone To Grow Both Personally… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.